Breaking Mercury

The figure above shows an oblique view of a 280 km long scarp. The color scale on this
figure represents elevation in which red is high and blue is low. This scarp is interpreted
to be a surface-breaking thrust fault. Thrust faults are surface manifestations of the
shrinkage of the planet resulting from the cooling of its interior. Notice that the terrain on
the left side of the scarp stands about 2 kilometers higher than that of the right side of
the scarp. To give you a sense of the scale of this scarp, the state of Delaware has
been superposed on the figure.